Change
by Potgenie
Summary: Classification leads to differentiation, differentiation breeds isolation, isolation results in discrimination. And this, my friends, is more dangerous than you could ever imagine. AU.


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**Change  
Prologue**

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14__th__ April, 2006_

_Why do we classify people? Is it an inevitable part of human nature?_

_Yeah, I'm sure you saw this coming. It's me and my random musings again. It's funny how these thoughts just pop suddenly into my head and I can't get them out until I think through them properly , or write about them here. It helps!_

_Today Mum and I were on the way home from the supermarket after grocery shopping. There was this beggar sitting by the entrance. He was really skinny and looked as though he would break any minute. His eyes were bloodshot and even though he didn't say anything, his gaze spoke a thousand words. I couldn't stop staring, and I was this close to pulling out my wallet and giving him every single cent of my allowance when Mum dragged me away._

"_Don't stare. You don't know what he could do to you," she whispered to me as she forced me in the opposite direction. "People like these are really an embarrassment to society."_

_My mother is the kindest and sweetest woman you would ever meet. I suppose the above incident doesn't really justify that, but she is. Still…_

_My point is that everybody judges. We like to think we don't, because it's mean and all, but we still do it anyway. Even now, in elementary school, there're cliques forming rapidly. There's the "cool crowd" and the "sporty ones" and so on. I tell myself I don't care which one I end up in, but the truth is I'm not so sure about that anymore._

_I start high school next year. It's just a few months away, and I've heard that it's a really big change. Look at my brother – he's like a different person now! In a good way, though. But the bottom line is he really did change quite a bit._

_Well, I'm going to make my resolution now: I'm not going to be like that. I like the way I am now and I know my friends and family do, too. I want my life to go on being the way it is._

_I'm not going to change._

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**Present Day**

He had taken to watching the news every night with his parents. No doubt they found it strange that he would suddenly be interested in current affairs, but he knew that they didn't question him about it because they were pleased with this new behaviour. This suited him perfectly well.

At nine-thirty p.m. sharp he settled himself on the couch. The television was already turned on and the last few notes of the business-like melody signalling the start of the news were already dying away.

"Our breaking news today revolves, once again, around the mysterious disappearance of four teenagers from Odaiba High School – Takaishi Takeru, Ishida Yamato, Ichijouji Ken and Motomiya Daisuke. The four of them have been missing for over two months now and…"

He straightened in his seat. Could it be possible…?

"This afternoon, the mother of Takaishi Takeru and Ishida Yamato announced that she and her ex-husband had decided to call off the search parties that have been going around Japan looking for their sons. Declining to give any more details, the only comment she gave was, "If they don't want to be found, they never will be." On the other hand, the Ichijoujis and Motomiyas remain insistent for the search to continue for their children."

Divorced for twelve years now, Takaishi Natsuko…"

The photographs of the two brothers enlarged on the television screen so that they were side by side, filling up the entire screen. The uncanny similarity between the two boys was undeniable. The younger one looked young for his fifteen years; he was smiling brightly in the photograph and many gossip-mongers had commented that he certainly didn't look like the type to run away. (_Is there even a type for something like that? _He wondered to himself now as he shifted uncomfortably on the couch.) The older brother, on the other hand, was not smiling; his messy blonde hair fell carelessly over his eyes and his expression was sullen and closed. These published photographs had caused speculation that the brothers' similarities ended with their looks.

But _he _knew better.

"... Is there a connection between these four disappearances? The police think that this is very likely, and that it could even be a mass runaway case. We can only hope that the four boys are safe and sound, wherever they are, and return to their families and friends soon."

On the television screen, Yamato's sullen face continue to glare at him.

"Friends?" Yagami Taichi muttered under his breath, so softly that his parents did not notice. "The only friend he ever had was me."

**---**

Inoue Miyako knew that she would never have the courage to run away, however messed up her life may be. The circumstances she was currently in were not pleasant in the least, but it had been like that for so long she had gotten used to it. Yes – she had gotten used to being treated as invisible in school, because that was better than the occasional mean taunting and mocking she received. She had gotten used to the cold emptiness of the tiny apartment she lived in with her family when she returned home from school, because the fights that began once the rest of them reached home were even worse.

People would certainly think she was crazy, but she admired the four of them, now famously termed the "Four Escapees" in school. Previously they had just been nobodies; they had been misfits like her. Now, the subject of them was on the tip of everyone's tongue.

Clutching her books clumsily to her chest, she stumbled through the crowded hallway as she made her way to her classroom. In a cruel twist of irony, their teacher had decided to assign the seating arrangements this year and she had wounded up next to one of the Miss. Populars in the school. She was everything Miyako wanted to be; yet Yagami Hikari would never give her the time of day. They had been sitting next to each other for a few weeks now, but given the situation Miyako might as well have been sitting all by herself.

Finally reaching her destination, she sank down into her chair with a tired sigh. The seat next to her was predictably empty. Hikari was never early.

Miyako gazed around the classroom; her classmates were taking the opportunity of these last few free minutes, before the bell went off, to catch up on gossip and each other's lives. They all looked so happy and carefree. The all-too-familiar stab of envy accompanied the bitter sadness that was now rising up in Miyako's chest, and she tried her best to stem these feelings down. Breaking down in the middle of class was not going to do anything for her already non-existent popularity.

She had thought about this a lot. Why did people dislike her so much? They were all students of roughly the same age, clad in the same green and white uniform, attending the same classes and studying for the same examinations. Why did they have to differentiate themselves so?

In elementary school, Miyako had studied Classifications in Science classes. She considered herself the bottom of the food chain of school, while Hikari was somewhere at the top, far away. On a miserable day once, she had even drew up the whole chain in her head, a mental chart of sorts – which group was at the top, which group was near the bottom like her, which ones were in the middle. Surprisingly (and rather unfortunately, she thought) she had found it extremely easy.

But was this classification really necessary?

**TBC**

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**So! A new fic. This idea had been brewing in my head for a while now, but it only formed properly (and very suddenly) when I was on the bus home today lost in my random musings. It was like an "Ah Ha!" kind of thing! I don't really know how to categorize this story, though - so that might change as I continue.**

**And so this makes my list of Uncompleted Stories to **_**five… **_**I don't know what I'm thinking, seeing how I'm already too busy to update properly as it is. :P All I can promise now is that once school ends, and I have more free time, I'm going to update everything much more regularly!**

**A last Note: This is AU, so don't expect everyone to be completely in-character. As usual, I might have taken some of their personalities to the extreme - or the exact opposite. :)**

**Please do review and tell me what you guys think of this new idea of mine!**


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